Some public and private employers provide a broad array of both core and voluntary benefits to employees. Such employers at times have to regularly overhaul or even eliminate traditional core benefits to decrease expenses. Employers are increasingly trying to reduce the negative impact of such benefit cuts on employees by offering an ever-growing array of voluntary benefits individually selected and often paid for by employees themselves. Such voluntary benefits are generally offered at little or no cost to employers and save employees money over similar options available to the general public. These voluntary benefits may fill some important insurance gaps or provide essential services due to cuts in traditional or core benefits programs.
Voluntary benefits programs have grown so popular that large health insurance companies are broadening their offerings to include many of these voluntary benefits. Bundled packages of benefits can cut costs for employees even further. As such, voluntary benefits programs are becoming an important enticement for employees and can help smaller companies hang on to more of their valuable employees. Many insurers are offering voluntary benefit products and packages aimed at market niches. Two of the most important such niches for small employers are part-time and hourly workers who don't qualify for traditional health benefits and new employees who may need temporary coverage while waiting for their company plan to begin.
However, management of these core and voluntary benefits programs involves an increasingly significant time and monetary burden for employers. Employers typically attempt to manage these benefits programs internally in their human resources departments as they did with the traditional or core benefits programs. Further, each employer must have a human resources department that includes employees knowledgeable about each of the benefits programs. As the number of benefits offered increases, managing these benefits becomes difficult and expensive. Thus, the cost of cutting core benefits is not fully realized.
The voluntary benefits programs may comprise a wide range of offerings including both pretax and post tax benefits. Employees receive a pay stub that includes a separate line item for each of the core and voluntary benefits that they select and must at least partially pay for. Managing payroll itself has become burdensome and is complicated by the myriad of benefits offerings.
There is a need for systems and methods of providing voluntary benefits outsourcing that is convenient and economical for employers and provides advantages for employees. There is also a need for systems and methods of providing voluntary benefits outsourcing that allows selection of a plurality of voluntary benefits to employees without significantly increasing a time and monetary burden on the employer.